Janis Claxton

Janis is a contemporary dance practitioner with 30 years of experience internationally in dance and the performing arts.

Australian by birth, she has lived and worked in several countries including Australia, Japan, the US and the UK, traversing a wide range of professional, community and educational dance sectors as a choreographer, teacher, producer and performer. Currently based in Scotland, Janis is Artistic Director of the award winning company Janis Claxton Dance. She has taught for major conservatoires in the UK, Australia, Holland and China and has choreographed for JCD, The National Dance Company of Wales, BeijingDance LDTX, Lung Has and Grid Iron theatre companies and more.

In 2009 Janis received a British Council Connections through Culture grant to visit China. Since then she has had an on-going relationship with Chinese dance artists and organizations. This includes taking her company to collaborate with Chinese dancers for the Shanghai Expo, and with BeijingDance/LDTX for the Beijing Dance Festival as part of UK Now Festival in China.

Her work includes site-specific creations for public spaces such as the Herald Angel Award winning Enclosure 44 – Humans set inside an animal enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo and the upcoming Chaos and Contingency featuring dancers from Scotland and China in gallery spaces as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. Janis speaks basic Mandarin Chinese and is a part-time MPhil (Choreography) student at Edinburgh University.